


Rage

by PurpleShamrock



Series: Rowvember 2020 [1]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Boss most of all, Everyone Has Issues, Gen, Other, The fallout from SR1, Warning for church burning if that sorta thing bothers you, it's just her vocabulary, she's a small angry Irish girl who swears alot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:00:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleShamrock/pseuds/PurpleShamrock
Summary: “Isn’t all that rage so ugly? And isn’t it mine still? Good God, isn’t it mine?” -Ashe Vernon, from ‘buried’, Not a girl (via life in poetry)Boss handles things the only way she knows. Not very well. Seeing enemies all around closing in, she does something drastic, but can she really pull that trigger?
Relationships: Female Boss (Saints Row)/Troy Bradshaw
Series: Rowvember 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145972
Kudos: 2





	Rage

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! 
> 
> My first post on here, hope you enjoy! Just transferring some stuff from Tumblr to here, I opened the account here I may as well use it.

_“So if I told you to walk away, you would have said yes?”  
“Fuck no! This is my city.”  
“Jesus...you haven't learned a God-damn thing.” _  
__

__Shea swiped at her eyes angrily, how dare he? How dare Julius pass judgement on her like he was better than her? That no good, traitorous son of a bitch that-  
That she once thought of as a father.  
_ _

__How could she feel like this about killing him when he had almost killed her? With no remorse for it at all, was she really just a weapon he used to clear the streets? He just wound her up and watched her go, smashing through everything in her path and had the audacity to be afraid of what he created. He never gave her the choice to walk away, not like he had with King.  
He never gave her the fucking choice.  
_ _

__He was right about one thing though, she wouldn’t have stopped, she couldn’t. She had bled many times over for the Saints, watched her friends bleed, watched some die and she wasn’t going to be the one to slap them in the face in return for all they had given and just walk.  
That gunshot had ended him in life, but not in her mind and she punched the steering wheel in rage, the pain gave her a brief reprieve from the whirlwind of shit flying round her brain.  
_ _

__She couldn't even remember when she was last at peace, she didn't know if she was _ever _at peace. When she slept the nightmares came, when she was awake she dwelled on it. She truly felt like she was losing her mind. The abyss of the coma seemed like it was a life away, that it had happened to a different person; and maybe she was exactly that. A different person, an imitation of the girl she used to be. She wanted her back, but it was too late for that.  
She wasn’t just Shea O’Connor anymore, she was The Boss, and the problem she was having was merging those two parts of her together. Rage helped, it was there before the Boss and it was going to be there after, and that was was she’d consistently latch onto, the only thing familiar in all this mess.  
Her phone started ringing, it had been non stop for the last hour, and it was probably her lieutenants, She should answer, but she ignored it, kicking her way through the old mission house to get down to Purgatory because she didn’t want to wait for the lift.  
___ _

___The Saints behind the last door scattered as she busted through it, moving out of her way as she stormed through the club, down the stairs and into the garage, where there were a couple of tanks of gasoline. She grabbed them and hauled them up, promptly heading back for the steps. That’s when she saw a Saint break off from the rest and she tried to speed up with her cargo, but Rocco was unburdened, and quickly caught her on the steps in the old mission cellar.  
“Who you burning Boss?” he asked, walking alongside her with hands clasped behind his back.  
“Nobody.” she answered shortly, and Rocco closed his eyes and nodded.  
“It’s not a person is it?” he guessed, and Shea froze and looked up at him. Rocco was 6’4 and a giant of a man, but a gentle one at that, at least with her-back in the day or even now, and the only person that had been doing this longer than even she or Johnny, she respected the hell out of him, but right now she was annoyed that he’d guessed her target so easily. “I’m calling Shaundi.” he said, his hands going for his phone, and Shea reached over to stop him.  
“No.”  
“Why? Because she’d stop you?” Rocco asked, “I’ve been watching the news all morning, the church is swarmed with cops, Troy’s there.” he said and a fresh wave of rage rose from the dark pit of her stomach.  
“Well then he should know better than to get in my fucking way.” she hissed.  
“He’s gonna be hurting after Julius was found this morning, and you’re going after our church?! What’s Johnny gonna think when he wakes up to a burnt out Saints Row?”  
_ _ _

___Shea pursed her lips and glared at him, dropping the tanks of gasoline with authority, and also because they were too heavy. She was hurting too, couldn’t he see that?  
“That’s the point Roc! Have you even been there? It’s not our church anymore.” she snapped, and Rocco folded his arms. “Julius set the bomb on the yacht, and Dex sent this fucking private army after both of us last night.” she said, trying to make him at least understand where she was coming from, “I’m sending a message to Ultor, you don’t need to agree, but he needs to know that if he wants to kill me? He can come and do it himself.” she said, hauling the tanks up again and storming onwards, and Rocco shook his head.  
“Dex is trying to kill you now?! He wouldn’t!” he said, and Shea smiled a mirthless smile and shrugged.  
“Sorry you had to find out this way.” she said as Rocco dragged his hands over his face as these revelations sank in.  
“Leah’s gonna freak.”  
“Welcome to the club.” Shea replied, then turned and headed up. She didn’t particularly want to be the bearer of bad news, to tell Rocco that he, like she and Johnny had bled for people that didn’t so much as care about the level of sacrifice they’d given. Didn’t want to admit that she had been well and truly manipulated, when she had previously figured herself a decent judge of character. It had made her question herself, contributed to this lost feeling as she struggled to figure out who she was now.  
She was hurt, she could admit that however, it burned through the numbness deep down and animated the rage she clung to, and now she was going to unleash it.__ _

__

____

__

***

__

____

__

The police gathered at the church had no idea what was coming for them, she came down on them in a hail of bullets and limbs, stalking straight for Troy. They had pulled him behind cover, guns pointed at Shea but she kept moving, kept advancing forwards, cutting a bloody path straight towards him.  
He didn’t fight her, even when she wrapped a forearm around his neck and turned with him, using him as a shield, and the bullets immediately ceased.  
“Me and you are gonna have a little chat, yeah mate?” she hissed in his ear and again he didn’t move, just seemed to accept whatever she planned to dish out, allowing her to drag him inside the church as she took out any cop stupid enough to stick their head out of cover.  


The fight continued inside the church, but as her meat shield began to weigh her down she promptly slammed the butt of her pistol into the side of Troy’s head, he crumpled in her arms and she dumped him behind a pew for cover while she picked off the police inside here too, not stopping until everyone was dead but her and Troy. She went outside then, and only then, to grab the tanks of gas.  


That’s when she got to her real work, smashing her foot through pews, ripping the plaques off the walls and adding them to the piles of broken pieces or the new circle of kindling she had made around Troy’s unconscious form, then she picked up the gas tank, splashing the gas all over the church walls and floor, then the second went over the circle of kindling around Troy.  


He began to stir then, his hands moving up to push up from the floor, he stared at the ground in confusion, and Shea stopped and put the tank down, watching his face shift from confusion to realisation as the pungent smell of gas reached his nose.  
“Your ‘chats’ seem like an elaborate murder suicide plot.” Troy winced as he got to his feet, not as agile as he used to be, Shea noted, but who would if all you did was sit behind a desk all day?  
“Oh I don’t know, I’m just winging this to be honest.” she replied, and Troy narrowed his eyes, and she saw fear there, probably more than if she said she was going to outright kill him. “I killed Julius.” she stated, looking him square in the eye as she said it, part of her expected him to feign surprise since it was him that told her the Ronin got him, but all he said was:  
“I know.”  
“You lied.”  
“I know.”  
“Then you know what I’m meant to do.” she said then, and Troy gave a small nod.  
“I know.” he said again, and Shea closed her eyes for a moment, the ache of sheer exhaustion pulling at her, to drag her to sleep, lie in that fleeting darkness that was supposed to grant rest. She scratched her head with the barrel of her gun and cringed as her eyes burned, then she opened them, her gaze flicking back to his before raising her weapon. “Anything you wanna say?”  


Troy didn’t answer at first, just looked at her, pity in his eyes, and that was worse, it was one thing that Shea had to kill another old friend, he’d betrayed her, betrayed the gang, betrayed her friends, but the fact that he _understood _this made her skin crawl.  
“I wish the Saints had found me first.” he said after a while, and her heart jolted and tears came to her eyes again, a wave rising until it came out as a sob, and the hand holding the gun shook.  
“God fucking damn you, you fucking bastard.”  
__

__He was a bastard for turning on the Saints, and he was a bastard for saving them too. He was a bastard because he lied so sweetly, so sincerely and she hated him for it. He was a bastard because he read her so well, knew that she was looking for an excuse, any excuse not to have to do this, and so the gun dropped by her side and she folded in on herself, gripping the sides of her head, fingers digging in her hair. A few moments passed before she heard footsteps, and he heaved himself down to sit next to her with an almighty sigh.  
“So it was you at the station yesterday.” he said, and she lowered her arms and stared at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. She shouldn’t be falling apart like this.  
“We needed the traffic cameras, and I knew you were holding something back.” she said, then shook her head, “ _I fucking asked you _Troy, I fucking asked you if there was anything you knew that you hadn’t told me, and you swore there wasn’t. You swore as we stood in the morgue with Aisha's body” she snapped, then punched him hard in the arm, “you absolute fucking cunt!”  
“Right, because you’re thinkin’ completely straight right now.” he rolled his eyes, rubbing his arms.  
“Don’t fucking pretend you did it for my benefit!”  
“Well shoot me for being worried about you-”  
“-which can still be arranged.” she pointed out, raising her pistol, and his eyes flicked to it, then back at her.  
“You’re goin’ through a lot.” he said, and Shea slowly turned to glare at him.  
“I’ll be fine.” she replied, and Troy gave a pointed analysis of the church before fixing her with a look.  
“Uh-huh.”  
“If I’m pissed off, I’m fighting, I’m fine.” she said with a sigh, as sirens started blaring in the distance, coming closer, a squadron at least and she checked the ammo in her pistol before popping the clip back. “Time to go Troy, come on.” she said, gesturing for him to come over before she put her forearm round his neck and they frogmarched towards the exit, Shea only stopping to flick open her her lighter and throw it at a puddle of gas.  
It went up instantly, flames billowing up to the rafters, but Shea took no time to admire her handiwork, as she opened the back doors of her car and half threw Troy in the back before getting in the front, speeding away from the scene just as the sirens got impossibly loud, flooring it.  
“Ultor’s gonna come after you for this.” Troy said, gazing behind them before turning in his seat, silent before adding, “but you knew that, didn’t you?”  
“It’s what I’m counting on.” she replied quietly, glancing in the rear view mirror.  
“Dex isn’t gonna go easy on you just because he used to roll with you.”  
“No, but he was banking on me being too emotional to fight last night and it didn’t pan out how he wanted so he’s going to spend every waking moment figuring out his next move. Vogel’s all smiles for the camera so he’s gonna put everything into restoring the church and not revenge per se. I just bought some time.” she explained, with Johnny out and no feasible time he’d be back in the game, she had no choice, she’d need him to help her go after Ultor, and if he never woke up? She didn’t want to think about that. Just trying made her eye twitch, and her heart ache.  
“Shit.” Troy replied, and he sounded impressed.  
“I paid attention somewhere along the way.” she sighed, resting her head on her hand as she drove, and Troy leaned between the two front seats.  
“Where we goin’?”  
“Just finding somewhere to dump you.”  
“Charmin’.”  
“I could still put a bullet in you if you’d prefer?”  
“I’m good.” Troy replied, leaning back with his hands up, he dropped them, looking out of the window at the buildings speeding by before he asked, “How’s Johnny?”  
“He’s breathing, so there’s a chance.”  
“He’s a stubborn fuck, just like you, he’ll be OK.” he said gently, and Shea sighed, he’d better be, it was going to be a hell of a lonelier world for her if both Aisha and Johnny left it.___ _

______ _ _

____

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End file.
